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Will Canadian Idol be eliminated?

Canadian Idol, which returns for a sixth season Tuesday, is not the ratings juggernaut it once was. Despite all the screams in the John F. Bassett Theatre, ratings were down last season, just as they dipped this spring.

Will declining viewership mean host Ben Mulroney and rest of Canadian Idol getting the hook? That moment might be closer than you think. (SUPPLIED PHOTO)

By Bill BriouxSpecial to the Star

Sun., June 1, 2008

This year on Canadian Idol, the pressure is really on. Not just on the contestants – on the entire franchise.

The CTV talent showcase, which returns for a sixth season Tuesday at 9 p.m., is not the ratings juggernaut it once was. Despite all the screams in the John F. Bassett Theatre, ratings were down last season, just as they dipped this spring on American Idol.

Viewership was especially down in big cities like Vancouver and Toronto, where some Idol episodes failed to crack the local Top 10 lists. More alarming to CTV and its advertisers has to be the exodus of younger viewers. When American Idol premiered, for example, the median viewer age was 33. Last season, it was 45.

Where did those younger viewers go? Always TV's most fickle audience, they've moved on, not just to other TV shows, but to YouTube, Guitar Hero and Grand Theft Auto.

At one point last summer, frustrated executive producer John Brunton made the unusual plea for Torontonians to get behind their local singers. Brunton knows, as he explained this week, that Canadian Idol is not that different from Hockey Night in Canada.

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"The ratings for the Stanley Cup playoffs aren't as high as they would be if there was a Toronto sports team in it," he says. The show is driven by viewer involvement. Idol needs Toronto or Vancouver or Montreal to rally behind a local singer in order to goose the ratings.

Then again, viewers in those cities may be distracted this summer by the flurry of reality programming flooding across the border, shows like Celebrity Circus, America's Got Talent, Celebrity Family Feud and I Survived a Japanese Game Show. Beyond that, CBC's coverage of the Summer Olympic Games in Beijing will test Idol's staying power in August. With so much first run competition, this is not an idle – or perhaps an Idol – summer.

Canadian Idol, which routinely drew more than 2 million viewers per outing in previous years, was down to 1.3 to 1.6 million through July and August last season. CTV is responding by tinkering with the show, adding Juno-winner Jully Black to the mix as a mentor, critic and voice coach. The four judges – Sass Jordan, Farley Flex, Jake Gold and Zack Werner – will all be back, as will host Ben Mulroney, "fresh from his non-speaking supporting role in front of the House of Commons Ethics Committee," as Larry LeBlanc tweaked in his music industry newsletter earlier this year.

Fox is also talking about making changes next season, cutting the results show back to half an hour, allowing contestants to play more instruments, maybe even reducing Paula Abdul's medication.

There is a suddenly a whiff of vulnerability about Idol, although Mediaweek's "programming insider" Marc Berman cautions about getting too carried away with all the Idol obits. He points out that the recent Fox finale drew a whopping 31.66 million viewers. "There's still immense interest," said Berman, "and there's no reason to believe the Canadian version will fade to black anytime soon."

Still, hit shows tend to go down a lot faster than they go up. Remember Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? That No. 1 show had a spectacular fall after ABC played it to death, flaming out in less than three seasons. Celebrity versions, increased jackpots – once that skid started there was no way even Regis could put on the brakes. After a two-episode tryout, CTV abandoned plans to spin off a weekly Canadian version.

With the broadcaster, which spent $1.7 billion to acquire the CHUM station group in 2006, investing millions on a makeover of another American hit – So You Think You Can Dance Canada – can it still afford an Idol that has hit its peak? CTV vice president of programming Ed Robinson admits it did not escape notice last season that the Canadian Idol audience numbers fell. The series is not cheap to produce, travelling to 10 cities again this season in search of new talent, with costly music rights clearances always an issue.

Still, Robinson believes the show can rebound and extend beyond this season. He's proud of the show and the homegrown innovations picked up by American Idol, such as letting competitors play guitars and other instruments. "They're borrowing from us," says Robinson.

Brunton, whose Insight Productions signs a year-by-year deal to produce the series, is confident that there are at least two more seasons in the show. He already has his eye on one young performer – who came all the way from London, England, to audition – he feels will be embraced by Torontonians.

Veteran music industry observer LeBlanc, however, wonders whether Canada can sustain an annual nation-wide music talent search. "I watched last season and cringed," says LeBlanc, who was not impressed with some of the finalists. He questions whether the Canadian talent pool is deep enough. "Is there not a rising young entertainer in Canada that has truly not tried out for this show by this point?" he asks. "They almost would be better off taking the show off the air for two or three years and then coming back with a new crop of artists."

Brunton says he used to worry about that, but now feels there has been a shift in the type of people coming out for auditions (some for the first time via online submissions). Last summer's winner, Hamilton, Ont.-native Brian Melo, 26, gave the show more of an alt-rock edge, he feels, inspiring all the garage bands and singer/songwriters he and the judges have seen this season. Brunton says it's the best talent lineup "since Season Two."

They better be, says LeBlanc, who notes that there is a great deal of cynicism about the career sustainability of Canadian Idol winners, especially in the media. "Who are the five losers who have already won?" is the typical media take, LeBlanc suggests.

Expecting Canadian Idol winners to become pop stars is unrealistic, says LeBlanc, who cites the high cost and long odds of launching a pop music career. Besides, we're a nation of rockers and folkies, not pop stars, he says, echoing Brunton's take that the show's future lies in a different musical direction.

"Will I be watching? Yes," says LeBlanc. "To be honest, I enjoy it. You see some of the crazy people at the beginning, tune out in the middle weeks, and come back at the very end." And if a Toronto kid is still standing in September as the sixth Canadian Idol winner, you can bet there will be a seventh.

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